Secondary Students Punished for Protesting

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Tuesday January 17, 2006 18:59 by Cian - Socialist Youth ComradeCian at eircom dot net

Students being punished for defending our future by protesting against Irish Ferries.

ON the day of the greatest Trade Union protest in 25 years, 10 students from Ard scoil Ris Limerick joined the protest. A month on and we are now being punished for it. What is worse is even students that did as the principal asked (brought in a note the following week) are being punished...
DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST
FIGHT FOR STUDENTS RIGHTS

[Note, this is only preliminary - things could change quickly]

Hey,

This is up here now as it is possible that over the next while other students in my school and I are going to need assistance from everybody on Indymedia in defeednig our education and our rights - and the rights of all students, young people and citizens!

On the day of the Irish Ferries protest I was approached by the acting principal of my school about the plan by me and other students (20 to 30) to leave school to attend the protest in opposition to the Race to the Bottom (i.e. defending our future).

After initial hostilities I was told that any student who leaves school to attend the protest would have to have a note in on monday or else they could face detention. I told him that we would hopefully still be leaving, some of us may not have notes in on monday and I believed that all students have a right to protest whether with or without their parent's permission.

At lunch time, about 20 to 30 were ready to leave, I was rushing around trying to find people i knew had said they would go etc. People were largely unsure whether they would go (afraid of punishment as the acting principal was standing in the yard by the gate).In the end 10 of us left to attend the protest. It was a great protest in Limerick (up to 10,000 the local and national media said) and nationally it was the biggest Trade Union protest in 25 years.

Now, over a month later, i have recived notice for detention. So have 4 others of those who walked-out. At lesat one person definitely brought in noote. But they are also punishing those of us who had notes. Even without the note it is a students democratic right to protest and we must fight for this right!

Talking to the dean of discpline today - he said he was told to give detention to all those who had a note in on monday, but not to anyone who had it in before the protest (in this case i think there is one student who had a note before hand as their parent is active in Siptu, having notes in was made more difficult as the day before the rotest we had no school so we werent talking). Talking to the previously acting principal (he is the Vice principal, but at the time the principal was on holidays) today, he said he did not know we had notes in on monday.

As it stands I do not really believe this is an 'honest misunderstanding' about 'mislaid notes'. But if they back track on this and let those with notes off that is one thing. The other side of the coin remains - it is every students democratic right to protest whether with the permission of their parents or not. If the student movement does not win this basic right then we are screwed. As things stand, I am holding back on organising a full campaign, but i am trying to get the word out there so people will be prepared if this is neccisary.

In a similar case before over the right to hand out leaflets outside our school we built up a strong army that we had lying in the wings and were able to get the principal to back down (www.socialistparty.net/ pub/pages/socialist010oct05/6.htm & http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72020&search_text=ardscoil ). This time we may need to do the same.

Going from history what we will probably try to do is:

-Contact local media (I have a conection here)
-Go to Socialist Youth and Socialist Party (of which I am a member) and get the public representatives on our side.
-Go to the trade unions
-Go to Indy media etc and get public on our side
-Through USS get other schools and students on our side as well as possibly our solicitor
-Organise a SHAME campaign - local media, letters, emails, phone calls, using Indymedia, Socialist Party, USS, TUs, public reps etc
-If they still don't back down the we believe people should be willing to step this up. This may be an oppurtune time for us to win our right to protest.

I will keep ye updated on what developments there are.

Thanks, Cian